Three years after the massacre: “Everyone is affected by October 7th”

Ali*, Palestinian Israeli, mid-30s

Since October 7th, the mood in my everyday life has changed radically. As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, I am used to living with the consequences of the conflict. We are the first to feel changes in society. There have been several wars in Gaza over the past two decades. Each time, most of Israeli society became strongly nationalistic. But what followed October 7th has reached unprecedented, frightening levels.

Especially in the first few months, the slightest criticism could result in arrest, humiliation, or worse. This has led to self-censorship. I haven't posted anything online in the last three years. I even hesitate before liking videos of Palestinian children in the rubble of Gaza.

October 7th was a terrible day marked by extreme cruelty and atrocities. I recognize how deeply traumatic this was for Jewish Israelis, what existential fears it triggered. Yet the common narrative treats the story as if it began and ended on October 7th. The trauma is used to justify all the atrocities and war crimes that followed. As if the Israelis alone were the victims. There is little room for empathy towards the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza. My perspective is different because I live at the intersection of two worlds.

I have always believed in peace. Despite all the challenges, I always held on to this hope. But today I'm afraid that the situation will only get worse. The Gaza Strip will no longer be the same as it used to be. The path to a two-state solution is blocked. And for Palestinians in Israel, discrimination and the erosion of freedoms will increase. Seeing this broke something fundamental within me. I can no longer see a future for myself here and feel the urge to leave the country forever. Serena Bilanceri

Laila* from Deir al-Balah in Gaza works for an international organization

After October 7th, like everyone here in Gaza, I witnessed a humanitarian catastrophe. In order to shower and get a single bucket of water, we had to be prepared for a seven-hour ordeal. Charging your cell phone battery became a luxury. And I have observed behavior in Gazan society that an Arab living outside Gaza might deny.

But I saw it. I saw the rampant greed of the rich spread during the war, encouraged by Hamas. I saw how the government - or rather what was left of it - turned into armed gangs that no one could stand up to. There were countless executions of citizens accused of espionage.

Morality simply disappeared; Greed became the driving force. A simple argument or Facebook post could lead to finding yourself surrounded by a hundred gunmen at 3 a.m. with orders to beat you, hold you, and eventually demand ransom.

Corruption also became a way of life in international institutions. We witnessed abuse of authority: while high-ranking officials fled to Cairo, those who remained took the opportunity to steal whatever they could. So let's be clear: no government with an Islamist character is allowed to be in power in Gaza, nor in security positions.

So much could be done: We could introduce electronic payment transactions, together with a strict financial supervision system. During the war, citizens became easy prey for exchange offices. We have to start rebuilding the schools; the children and young people urgently need a perspective. We need to make it possible for people to travel. However, not via the route that Israeli government members are proposing: via an emigration authority controlled by Israel. The Rafah border crossing must reopen to normal to allow travel abroad for study or work purposes.

And one more thing: Israeli goods should be allowed into Gaza. It could ease Israel's economic recession and the European ban on imports of West Bank settlement products and provide an economic boost to both sides.

Internationally, the voices calling for another October 7th - those who benefit from Hamas in Europe and Turkey - must be silenced. Hisham al-Masri

Tal Koppel, 42, Jerusalem. Religious-nationalist settler, podcaster and right-wing extremist activist for a Greater Israel

The last three years have been a bloody awakening. Most Israeli elites dreamed of normalization. One could find common ground with the Arabs and Islam. I was already on the right before. I'm sad because I didn't manage to wake people up earlier.

Now many Israelis have woken up, but in my opinion we have not reacted enough. The only humane solution is separation. The Palestinians must be driven out of Gaza to other places. I have a historic right to this land, they lost theirs through their genocidal attack. They have to find another place somewhere in the world and we can live here in peace.

We must recognize that the Arab world is culturally built on a different understanding and use of violence. They proved that with the brutality on October 7th.

My Jewish ethics, on the other hand, say: If someone wants to kill me, I will kill them. I'm not waiting for him to hit me. It's a natural instinct to defend yourself, you hate your enemy, I think that's pretty sensible. They caused us so much harm on October 7th, now they will suffer for it to learn their lesson. You have to understand, it's not worth messing with the Jews.

How is this supposed to resolve itself? My basic assumption is: every resource they have as a collective will be used against me to kill me. Autonomy like that of a sovereign state would mean taking a risk. That is unreasonable. So what is the way?

The solution is full Israeli control of one hundred percent of the territory. I want peace, I want security to raise my children without fear that Arabs from East Jerusalem or Gaza will come and kill them. That would be enough for me for tomorrow. Felix Wellisch

Mustafa Sh., 48, Hamas supporter and taxi driver in Gaza, displaced since September 2025

From the first hours, I saw October 7 as a first awakening after a long lethargy, an awakening that had to come in order to bring the Palestinian cause back to the table of nations after it had been almost forgotten - especially since the paths to normalization had already been paved and so much had been achieved. Then it became like a bird crashing silently into a wall. His wings broke and he fell, but he did not die.

That day I said, “Come to Jihad,” and in my mind the liberation of the country had begun. It was and still is a wonderful, impossible idea. Then years passed, not days, and I saw that we had released nothing but thousands of souls from their bodies. In the end, we even demanded what we already had. So I ask myself every day: "Why did we wake the devil? Did we have to die so that Palestine could live?"

The two-state solution was always advocated in the negotiations, but we chose to resist because we knew it was a lie - a way to buy time so that the "project of the century" could be fully completed. So the pretext of October 7 sealed the whole affair. The superpowers of the world are behind this devil with all their might, while the one who awakened him - us - receives a pat on the back from the world and a delivery of shrouds so that we are not buried in the open air.

After burying two of my sons and the third still lying under the rubble, I see no realistic solution that does justice to all these losses, other than Palestinians being just Palestinians, the only ones running their own country without guardianship. Perhaps holding on to resistance is the way to end the occupation, bring the refugees home, free the prisoners and declare Palestine an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Yes, it's a hard path, but despite all this pain, I can't find another. Without him, neither the equation nor justice will be complete. Sawsan al-Ajouri

Aysha*, 42 years old, Ramallah, West Bank

Everything in our lives has changed since October 7th. Especially for the people who live around the larger cities: Ramallah, Jerusalem. There are more roadblocks. We can no longer go to work as easily, we can no longer go to school as easily as before. Some days we can't go anywhere.

My son can no longer go to school every day like he did before October 7th. Sometimes he comes late, some days the checkpoints are closed and we can't get through at all. This is a problem for the children. I live in Ramallah, but my son's school is in East Jerusalem. We are originally from East Jerusalem and have a special ID.

Everyone is affected by October 7th, in different ways. Some more than others. Most Gazans are directly affected. They had a lot of deaths. And the situation in the West Bank is getting worse every day. We have to check every day whether there are settlers on the streets before we leave the house.

Unfortunately I don't see a solution in the immediate future. Previously I wasn't sure if I would support a two-state solution; it didn't seem like a realistic possibility. Also because many things from the Oslo Accords were not implemented. Since October 7th things have only gotten much worse. It is now all the clearer to me that a two-state solution is the only possible solution. Without a Palestinian state, I see no solution to this conflict.” Serena Bilanceri

Yonatan Zeigen, 38, son of peace and women's rights activist Vivian Silver, who was murdered by Palestinian militants in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.

After my mother's last message on the morning of October 7th, I remember the uncertainty, the panic, the longing for information. I was sitting on my porch and one of Vivian's friends said to me: You have to start working. This is the time to act.

Since then, I've been in mission mode: first, trying to get her back. When we learned she had been killed, the funeral and memorial service became my mission. Since then, my job has been to end the occupation and the conflict.

I joined the Parents Circle, an Israeli-Palestinian coalition of grieving families who have lost loved ones. I have spoken to politicians, diplomats and parliaments abroad. We founded the Vivian Silver Impact Award, which annually honors a Palestinian woman and a Jew for their commitment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today we find ourselves in a kind of collective psychosis. Before the elections at the end of October, I see three political options:

The first is the reality of annihilation. The settler movement and the far right used October 7th to impose a Greater Israel without Palestinians through physical violence and expansion. In Gaza and the West Bank, but also in Syria and Lebanon.

Next to it is the so-called middle. She fantasizes herself back to October 6th, back to conflict management as if nothing had happened. They think we can continue with the occupation like the last 60 years, only more civilized and with due process. The problem: Anyone who returns on October 6th will end up back on October 7th. The previous reality was unsustainable.

I want to create a third way and a completely different political and social reality based on equality: between Israelis and Palestinians and between Jews and Palestinians within Israeli society.

In the last few months we have founded “Makom le Kulanu” (German: “A place for all of us”), a political party that is aimed at everyone in Israel, but has found support above all among young Palestinian Israelis. We campaigned for three months. In the end, this time we are not running ourselves so as not to take away other parties' votes, but rather we are concentrating on getting as many people as possible to vote.

Our plan is a long-haul project. A party for two peoples in one country. I consider this to be the only viable path and the only one that brings security and well-being for all: Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs. Felix Wellisch

* Names changed by the editors at the request of the interviewees